Sharing Spaces (9 page)

He eased his grip. “The admiral was a good man, and that's all I have to say about that.” He released her and she took a step back, her eyes still wide, still drawing him into that dangerous place. He turned away and climbed the steep ramp toward the lodge.

S
ENNA WAS STILL REELING
from the vehemence of Jack's rebuke when he led her through the front door of the lodge, which opened into the spacious living room. The dominant feature was the huge fieldstone chimney, measuring at least six feet deep by ten feet wide, with two fireplaces, one facing the living room, the other facing the dining area, the chimney itself serving as the room divider between the two. The living room was stacked with cardboard boxes and wooden crates, some of which had been opened to reveal their contents. Couches, chairs, framed pictures, tables, lamps, bed frames…everything that was needed to furnish a fishing lodge. The floors, what little she could glimpse of them, were of polished pine, and the windows were large and looked out over the river and the black spruce forest below. The building smelled of pine shavings, cedar, varnish and sawdust, all things fresh and new.

Jack led her through the maze of boxes, past the fieldstone chimney. “This is the dining room. We assembled that damn table three weeks ago. Took forever. Custom made, seats twenty-four comfortably. We decided on one big table rather than a bunch of little ones. Telling fishing stories at suppertime is mandatory, and it's easier if the audience is all at the same table.”

Senna ran her fingers over the satiny wood. “Cherry?”

“Two pieces of two-hundred-year-old wood, hand-planed and rubbed. Finding chairs that went with it was hard. The Shaker ladder-backs were the closest thing to what the admiral wanted, but they were costly.”

“I'm impressed,” Senna said. In fact, she was awed. The dining room was elegant in its rustic simplicity. Above the table hung a hammered-copper chandelier with a collage of hand-forged fish leaping around its five-foot circumference. It was a magnificent work of art.

“Let's go into the kitchen. Goody hasn't seen it all put together yet, though she's heard all the stories.” Jack tugged her along as he spoke, through the swinging doors at the end of the dining room and into a bright and sparkling space filled with professional equipment any gourmet chef would have coveted. The stove was a big commercial Garland gas range with a griddle, two big ovens, an overhead broiler and eight burners. “Big stove. Big job getting it in here. Four men. Lots of cussing. Look at this.” He strode over to one of three stainless-steel refrigerators and pulled the door open. “Big refrigerators, propane and electric combo. Could fit a whole cow in here. See the dent in the side panel? We dropped this one halfway up the ramp. Lots more cussing.”

Senna laughed. He was already moving toward a pine-paneled door, opening it. She peeked inside. It was a large pantry, lined with ample shelves. Everything within would be in easy reach and visible, though it was empty now. Jack showed her the baking station, with stainless bins built under the counter that tipped out for access and could hold hundreds of pounds of flour and
sugar. The big piece of marble inlaid into the countertop for rolling out pie dough. The deep, stainless double-bay sink with a wide window looking out at river. He pointed at the skylights overhead that allowed better light and ventilation. Work island. Pot racks, hooks empty. No utensils anywhere. Everything was still boxed up in the living room, as yet unpacked.

He guided her back out into the dining room, through the living room, onto the porch that fronted the guest rooms. Three on either end of each porch, bare of all furnishings. “There'll be two double beds in each, table between, bureau, chair, writing desk,” he said. There were tiny closets and large picture windows in each room. Every room had water views because of how the river curved sharply around the knoll. He showed her the small but cute bathrooms in each room. Shower, toilet and sink were all installed. “No room for tubs in these little bathrooms, but wait'll you see the sunken hot tub on the lower porch.”

The hot tub held six people, and the view of the river was magnificent from this lower private deck, looking out over a short set of rapids that filled the air with the soothing sound of water over rocks. “Good place to soak away all your aches and pains at the end of the day with a close friend and a glass of wine,” he said.

Then it was down the ramp again to the building off the dock. “Generator building,” he said, opening the door to expose a large industrial-sized generator. “It burns propane and the building's insulated, so you don't even hear it running.”

“How do you refuel it?” Senna asked.

“In the spring we can bring fuel in on barges from White Bear Bay. In September, you'd run aground if you
tried to freight up the rapids, so we put enough tanks in to last the summer and then some, and planned to fill them up every spring. Everything in the lodge runs on propane, too. The good thing is, we don't need to run the generator except for pumping water up into the big storage tank. Once the tank is full, gravity feeds the water into the lodge's systems, but we also have a water pump for when guests want to take showers.”

“What's that other building down behind the lodge, the one you haven't shown me yet?”

“Guides' quarters. That's where your grandfather, Charlie and I were going to hang out. There's another little cabin for Goody and her niece, and next to her digs is a shed and fenced area for her coopies.”

“Coopies?”

“Chickens. Laying hens. She says she won't leave home without them, so we built her a shed and figured the fresh eggs would be a bonus.” He was leading her back to the lodge as he spoke, and though it seemed overly familiar, Senna liked very much the way he took her hand to help her up the steep ramp. She attributed his friendliness to his boyish enthusiasm over the lodge. Now, as they regained the porch and she stood looking about the property, her self-consciousness grew and she pulled out of his grasp. “There's still quite a bit left to do.”

He shoved his hands deep into his jeans pockets and slouched against a log porch post. “You should've seen the place a year ago,” he said.

Senna studied him, measuring his character against the results of his labors. “I have to admit, the lodge is nothing at all like what I expected. I'm…” She hesitated, not sure how to finish the sentence without sound
ing as if she'd doubted Jack and her grandfather could pull something on this grand a scale together and make it work.

“…thinking about spending the summer here and helping out?” Jack supplied with a hopeful look.

Senna laughed in spite of herself. “I'm impressed,” she corrected, effectively dodging the subject, at least for the moment. “I'm also starving. Let's go find Charlie and catch some fish. I'm hungry enough now to eat anything.”

Charlie was in the guides' cabin, sitting on the bottom bunk and thumbing through a leather-bound notebook. He glanced up and laid the book aside when Jack entered, Senna right behind him. Jack picked up the book and glanced at it. His expression darkened as he handed it to Senna. “It's the admiral's journal. I have no idea how it got here.” Then to the boy he said, “A journal isn't like a regular book, Charlie. It's personal, and you shouldn't read it unless the person who wrote it invites you to. How'd you happen to find it?”

“It was on the admiral's desk the morning he died.”

“And you took it without asking? Why?”

“I wanted to know if I was in it,” Charlie said.

Senna felt a pang at the boy's stoic yet vulnerable expression and touched Jack's arm. “It's all right,” she said. “There's no harm done.”

“Where's Ula?” Jack said, his voice not quite as hard.

Charlie pushed off the bed, eyes inscrutable. “She swam after a duck down on the river.”

“When?”

“Right after we landed.”

Jack swore softly. “That's it, then. We probably won't see her for hours or days. Maybe months and years.
Damn dog!” He noted Charlie's stricken expression and to Senna's relief he clasped the boy's shoulder. “Don't worry. She'll turn up. Let's catch a mess of fish. Maybe the smell of trout frying in the pan'll bring her on home.” Jack reached for the box of hand-tied salmon flies on the little table by the window, handed it to Senna, who still held the journal. “You fish?”

She took the box of flies and shook her head. “My brothers did when they were young, but I never took to it. I didn't like putting the worms on the hook and I don't like eating fish so I couldn't see the point in pursuing the sport.”

“Worms? Woman, perish the very thought. We're fly-fishing on this river, not bait-casting. There's a world of difference.” He put a can of bug repellent in his jacket and stuffed his other pocket with hard candy from a bowl on the table. “We'll take the skiff,” he said to Charlie. “Water's pretty high to be poling the canoe through the riffs. Don't want to get the wedding planner wet. That is, if she wants to come along.”

“I certainly do, and I wish you'd stop calling me that,” Senna said, as they exited the guides' cabin.

“That's what you are, isn't it?”

“That's what I
do,
not who I am.”

“The admiral was right,” Jack said, striding toward the lodge at a pace that had Senna half running to keep up. “I've only known you for a day, but I think you could have been much more.”

“I'm good at what I do, good enough that I make a damn decent salary, and there's nothing wrong with that!” Senna realized how foolish it was to be defending herself to a virtual stranger who had no business making such a disparaging remark about her job but
nonetheless her words were delivered in a rush of anger. Jack kept walking. He gained the lodge's deck and crossed the long porch to the ramp that descended to the dock. “Is there?” she prodded, maddened by his indifference.

“No, not at all,” Jack said over his shoulder, not slowing his stride. “You reminded the admiral of himself, that's all, and he thought you should have followed the same path he did.”

“And just what path might that be? Sailing the high and mighty oceans searching for enemy to kill?”

“Not exactly. He thought you should have kept on as a wildlife biologist. He thought you should have championed your causes to the bitter end. He admired the way you fought for the coyotes and the bear and was disappointed when you gave up the fight. The admiral took up a similar fight here, on behalf of the wolves. I guess he hoped you'd follow in his footsteps.”

“Was that his idea of love, insinuating his own dreams into my life and expecting me to live up to them?” she said, wishing he would slow down and wishing she could just ignore his infuriating words.

“I don't know,” Jack said. He reached the bottom of the ramp and stopped, glancing up at her. Senna paused a few steps above him, arrested by the intensity of his gaze. “Maybe it was his idea of immortality.” He shrugged. “Hell, I didn't say he was perfect.”

“Why didn't he have these dreams for my brothers?”

Another shrug. “He told me they were city boys and you were the one who was wild at heart. Come on, shake a leg. You said you were hungry.”

But Senna remained where she was, simmering with latent anger and frustration toward a grandfather she
couldn't please and a business partner she didn't want. She gestured back at the lodge. “You'll never get this place ready to go in two weeks time.”

“Wanna bet?” Jack stared up at her, his expression borderline arrogant. She heard Charlie's footsteps right behind her and Jack's glance shifted over her shoulder. The boy was burdened with fly rods and life jackets. “Charlie, hand that gear to the wedding planner and help me drag the skiff out,” he said.

The skiff was an old sixteen-foot Lund, dented aluminum, stashed out of sight behind the propane shed. While Senna watched, the two of them slid the craft into the water and secured it to the dock. The motor was stored inside the shed, a much newer-looking four-stroke Honda. “This is a good fishing boat for this river. Shallow draw, broad enough beam to stand up to the rugged riffs, rapids, and wind. She'll hold four people easily and six in a pinch, throttled down and riding gentle. You sure you want to come along?” Jack asked as he stood in the stern and bolted the motor onto the rear of the skiff.

“I'm not the type that waits at the gate,” Senna said, aware that her cheeks were still burning.

Jack's cocky grin didn't make her feel better. “Charlie, help her in.”

“I don't need help,” Senna said, handing the fly rods to Charlie, tossing the life jackets aboard and scrambling unassisted into the skiff.

“Guess not,” Jack said, eyeing her appraisingly.

Minutes later they were moving upriver. Senna sat in the bow, wind in her face. Charlie was silent behind her, scanning the shorelines for any sign of his missing dog. Jack sat in the stern, navigating up through a series of
shallow rapids and into a span of calm water out of sight of the lodge. “Good fishing hole over on this shore,” he said, making a slow gentle curve toward a smooth ledge that dropped into the water on the far shore. “Don't need to go very far this time of year. I'll just drop anchor and catch us some lunch.”

Jack hadn't been exaggerating. Before Senna even had time to properly study the surrounding riverbanks for flora and fauna, he'd landed four good-sized trout and they were heading back to the lodge. “Don't really need much but a frying pan to turn these beauties into a damn fine meal,” he said over the purr of the small out-board motor, “but we always kept a few luxuries at the guides' cabin for times like this.”

The luxuries he spoke of turned out to be stashed in an old army-surplus ammunition box that was tucked beneath a bunk. Corn meal, salt, an unopened can of coffee, a plastic jug of corn oil were all quickly retrieved. Charlie kindled a fire on the riverbank as Jack squatted on the gravel bar and cleaned the fish. Soon the smell of frying trout and boiling coffee flavored the cool clean air. While Jack tended the cook fire, Senna heard the boy whistle several times down along the river's edge.